Jodie Foster's acclaimed performances as a rape survivor in The Accused (1988) and as Special Agent Clarice Starling in the hit thriller The Silence of the Lambs (1991) earned her two Academy Awards for Best Actress.

Foster made her motion picture directorial debut in 1991 with the highly acclaimed Little Man Tate, in which she also starred. In 1995, Foster directed her second film, Home for the Holidays, which she also produced. Most recently audiences saw Foster star in Robert Zemeckis' Contact.

In 1992, Foster founded Egg Pictures, which produced Nell (1994), for which Foster earned an Academy Award nomination, Home for the Holidays (1995), the cable television film The Baby Dance (1998), which won a Peabody Award and received four Emmy Award nominations, and three Golden Globe Award nominations including best miniseries, and the upcoming filmWaking the Dead, starring Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly, directed by Keith Gordon. In 1996, Egg Pictures also presented the award-winning film L'Haine in the United States.

Foster began her career at age three, appearing as The Coppertone Girl in television commercials. She then went on to become a regular on a number of television series, including The Courtship of Eddie's Father, My Three Sons and Paper Moon. She made her feature debut in Napoleon and Samantha when she was eight years old.

But it was her role in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) and her powerful portrayal of a streetwise teenager in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) that won her widespread critical praise and international attention.

Foster received her first Oscar nomination and awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics for her role in Taxi Driver. She also became the only American actress to win two separate awards in the same year from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts: Best Supporting Actress, and Best Newcomer honoring herperformances in both Taxi Driver and Bugsy Malone.

Foster appeared in a total of four films in 1976: Bugsy Malone, Echoes of a Summer, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane and Taxi Driver, which were all presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone earned her an Italian comedy award.

In total, Foster has appeared in 33 films including Tom Sawyer (1973), Freaky Friday (1977), Foxes (1980), The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), Le Sang des Autres (1984), for which the multi-lingual Foster looped all of her own dialogue in French, Siesta (1987), Stealing Home (1988) and Five Corners (1988). She also appeared in Shadows and Fog, Sommersby and Maverick.

Foster graduated with honors from Yale University in 1984, earning a B.A. in Literature.